The High Court in Kitui has slapped a man with a life sentence after unsuccessfully appealing a 45-year jail term handed in January 2020.
Jacob Mutunga failed to convince the court to set aside the sentence in a defilement case lodged in 2018.
A Kitui Magistrate Court had found him guilty of defiling a 10-year-old girl on September 9, 2018, at 3pm in Thua location.
However, Mutunga got into more trouble after Justice Robert Limo ruled last week that the sentence should be increased to life for the defilement offense.
Justice Limo noted that section 8(2) of the Sexual Offences Act provides for only one sentence; life imprisonment.
Section 8 (2) of the Act states; A person who commits an offence of defilement with a child aged 11 years or less shall upon conviction be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
“In the end, this court finds that the prosecution’s case against the Appellant was simply overwhelming. The trial evaluated the evidence well and reached the correct conclusion,” the judge ruled.
“In the end, this appeal lacks merit. The conviction is upheld. The sentence meted out by the trial court of 45 years’ imprisonment is set aside and in its place, the Appellant shall now serve life imprisonment as provided under Section 8 (2) of the Sexual Offence Act.”
In the appeal, the petitioner argued that the lower court erred in convicting him on insufficient and uncorroborated evidence.
Justice Limo, however, ruled that Mutunga deserves the life sentence given the trauma he caused the child and the fact that he infected the girl with a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD).
In last year’s ruling, the lower court relied on the evidence of the minor, medical records produced in court, and the testimony by the girl’s mother.
